Heathrow Airport is one of the clients backing the scheme (Warren Rohner)
CCLG aims to raise clients’ awareness of best practice.
A “buddy” scheme that aims to support small business owners unaware they are about to become construction clients, by pairing them with clients when needed, has launched.
The scheme, devised by the Construction Clients’ Leadership Group (CCLG) and funded by BEIS, the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), HSE and CCLG members, aims to raise the perception of the industry as well as boosting productivity, reducing project costs and improve health and safety.
CCLG said it wanted to make business owners embarking on construction work aware that they have duties they have to understand and comply with, as set out in the CDM 2015 Regulations.
The body’s operations director Gren Tipper, who is overseeing the project, said it would aim to answer most questions new clients had on its website. He said: “I am talking to experienced clients and designers to try and capture all the obvious questions that someone new to buying construction would want to ask. We are building case studies on various types of work which people can go onto the website and view.
“The hope is that, by looking at what other business owners have done, new clients will pick up most of the answers to questions they will want to ask. If they have any more questions after that, they are able to fill in a form online and we will arrange a call to discuss things in more detail.
The clients involved so far in CCLG’s buddy scheme:
- The Crown Estate
- Landsec
- Thames Tideway
- Liverpool University
- Leeds University
- Imperial College London
- ProCure22
- Heathrow Airport
The scheme has been based on the CCLG model where members help each other to be better clients in specific areas.
This concept was seized upon by the HSE’s Construction Industry Advisory Committee (CONIAC) working group as part of its work to reach and influence small employers and occasional clients.
Explaining why the industry should get involved, Tipper said: “It is all too easy for clients not to be clear in what they want in the first place. Therefore they go to the industry with an ill-informed brief of what the requirements are. They then start getting prices in for something which is poorly defined, and then there is a tendency to go for the cheapest one without understanding what is or is not included.
“The cowboy element of the industry tends to flourish on the back of that. So what we are trying to do is to make sure clients are well informed.
“Less well-informed contractors will then need to up their game and those unwilling to do so will effectively find it difficult to secure work.”
Understanding the process
The buddy scheme is live and CCLG hopes that through industry collaboration it will eventually become a sustainable national scheme and be able to be extended to include domestic clients.
Eddie Tuttle, the CIOB’s director of policy, research and public affairs, said: “Having construction clients understand clearly how they fit into the construction process is so important, yet so often overlooked.
“The goal of raising the perception of the industry is one the CIOB has been working towards with its new Quality Code of Practice which includes key references to having clients at the heart of project teams. Without the client being fully engaged in the project and possibly lacking the knowledge and confidence to play their part effectively, quality can be compromised and costs can spiral.”
He added: “This Construction Clients’ Leadership Group initiative goes a long way towards addressing that, and should be welcomed by the construction sector.”
